Saturday, September 05, 2009

Dominance by the Greedy Power Interests?

When I began my graduate studies first in theology and then legal philosophy in the late 1950s and early 1960s a reasonable balance existed between management, labor, and governmental powers. Our established churches were focused on social justice -- civil rights and poverty reform. And good things emerged ranging from civil rights legislation to Medicare. Since that time we have been seeing a downhill slide both with increased dominance by the greedy powers and a shift in in our Christian churches too frequently to the pursuit of wealth and/or policies that do far more harm than good for people.

As I have commented earlier, one can scarcely trust the major media outlets of TV and radio which are routinely deceiving people as to the best interests of themselves and others. The health care 'war' is a perfect example of this tendency. We should have adopted single payer funding of medicine during the Truman years when the Western European nations did so. Only greed blocked that move then as it is doing now.

Given my graduate school training, I am appalled by what I am seeing.
A number of my teachers back then, including Reinhold Niebuhr, one of our leading theologians, warned of this future and he and others persuaded me to move on to philosophy rather than trying to fight a losing battle against the greedy who were already moving in on our churches -- good friends found themselves being ousted from their clergy roles by bankers running the churches as trustees unwilling to put up with reform oriented sermons.

How do we reverse this trend I do not know. Obama is a smart guy, but he cannot do it all by himself. And a number is being done on him personally by the greedies who see him as an impediment to their interests.

And so it goes. What do you think?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
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Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]

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